Philip, after he had fled five miles from the field, that is to say, so far as to the eastern extremity of the defile he had fruitlessly endeavored to defend, at length perceiving that he was unpursued, and suspecting the reason, halted on a steep knoll covering the entrance of the pass, and sending out parties along the ridges and through the ravines with which they were familiar, soon collected all his men about his standard save those whom he had left on the field of battle, never to rouse to the trumpet or rally to the banner any more.
Thence he retreated rapidly down the valley of the Aöus, or Vioza, in a south-easterly direction to a place called the camps of Pyrrhus, supposed to be Ostanitza, near the junction of the Voidhomati and Vioza,[[14]] where he passed the night; and thence by a prodigious forced march of nearly fifty miles reached Mount Lingon on the following day, where he remained some time in doubt whither to turn his steps, and how to frame his further operations.
Mount Lingon is the eastern and loftiest extremity of a great chain of hills; dividing Macedonia proper from Thessaly on the east and Epirus on the west. It forms a huge, triangular bastion, its northern base overlooking Macedonia, and its apex facing due southward, which is in fact the water-shed between the three great rivers, Aöus or Vioza flowing north-westward into the Adriatic, Penëus or Salamosia flowing eastward into the gulf of Saloniki, and Arecthus or Arta, which has a southerly course into the gulf of the same name, famous in after days for the naval catastrophe of Actium.[[15]] The flanks of this ridge are steep, difficult and heavily timbered, but its summits are green with rich, open downs, and watered by perennial springs and fountains, an admirable post of observation, and commanding the descent into all the great plains of Northern Greece. After mature deliberation, Philip retreated still south-eastward to Tricca, now Trikkala, on the Penëus; and, though with a sore heart, devastated his own country, wasting the fields and burning the cities. Such of the population as were capable of following his marches, with their cattle and movables, he swept along with him; all else was given up as plunder to his soldiers, so that no region could suffer aught more cruel from an invader than did Thessaly at the hands of its legitimate defender. Pheræ shut her gates against him, and since he could not spare the time to besiege it, for the Ætolians were coming up with him rapidly, having laid waste all the country around the Sperchias and Macra and made themselves masters of many strong towns, he made the best of his way back to the frontiers of Macedonia.
In the meantime, the consul, after his victory, followed so hard on the track of his defeated enemy, that on the fourth or fifth day, after reorganizing his forces and taking up the pursuit in earnest, he reached Mount Cercetium some fifty miles in advance of Philip’s deserted station on Lingon, where he had given rendezvous to Amynander and his Athamanians, whom he needed as guides for the interior of Thessaly. Thereafter, he stormed Phaloria, received Piera and Metropolis into surrender, and laid siege to Atrax, a strong place not far from Larissa, on the Penëus, about twenty miles above the celebrated pass of Tempe, in which Philip lay strongly intrenched watching his movements, and not more than forty from the shores of the Ægean. This small place, however, garrisoned by Macedonians, offered so stubborn a resistance that Flamininus was unable to take it, until the season was waxing so far advanced, that, finding the devastated plains of Thessaly utterly inadequate to the support of his army, and having no harbors on the coast of Acamania or Ætolia in his rear, capable of receiving transports sufficient to supply him, he judged it best to raise the siege, and fall back to winter-quarters in Phocis, on the shores of the gulf of Corinth, leaving the whole of Thessaly ruined, and its principal towns either destroyed by Philip, or occupied by his own garrisons.
During these proceedings of the consul by land, his brother, Lucius Quinctius, who commanded the fleet destined to co-operate in the war, acting in conjunction with Attalus and the Rhodian squadron, had made himself master of Eretria, Calchis and Carystus, the strongholds and principal towns of Eubœa, winning enormous booty, and stationed himself at Cenchreæ, at the head of the gulf of Eghina, whence he was preparing to lay siege to Corinth, the most opulent and splendid of all the Greek cities, now held by a strong Macedonian garrison, backed by a powerful faction within the walls, for Philip.
Marching down into Phocis without opposition, for except the garrisons of a few scattered towns there was no force, on this side Macedonia, adverse to the Romans, Flamininus took Phanotea by assault, admitted Ambrysus and Hyampolis to surrender, scaled the walls of Anticyra, entered the gates of Daulis pell-mell with the garrison which had sallied, and laid regular siege to Elatia, which was too strong to be taken by a coup-de-main. The capture and sacking of this town was the last military operation of the campaign.
A political event occurred, however, at the close of it, which was even of greater influence in the end, than all the victories of the year, the ratification namely of a treaty of alliance between the powerful Achæan confederacy and the Roman republic, by the consequences of which, joined to the events of the past campaign, all northern Greece from the Isthmus of Corinth to the line formed by the Aöus and Penëus rivers, and the ridges of Lingon and Cercetium, was united under the eagles of the republic against Philip. Within that region, however, the two splendid cities—Corinth, the siege of which by Attalus and Lucius Quinctius had proved unsuccessful, and Argos—still held out for the king, and it was evident that another campaign would be needed for the termination of the war.
Well satisfied with his success, as he had indeed cause to be, for few campaigns on record have more fully and masterly accomplished their end, Flamininus retired into winter-quarters in the island of Corfu, while Attalus and the proprætor Lucius laid up their fleets in the Piræus, and passed the season of inactivity within the walls of Athens.
During the winter, after the election of the new consuls, Caius Cornelius Cethegus, and Marcus Minutius Rufus, but before it was known whether the conduct of the war would be continued to Flamininus, or one of the consuls appointed his successor, a sedition broke out in the town of Opus, and the inhabitants admitted the Romans. The Macedonian garrison, however, still held out, and while Flamininus was preparing to reduce it, a herald arrived from the king, demanding an interview in order to treat of peace. To this the consul, naturally desirous to conclude the war himself, acceded, and a singular interview followed.
A place was appointed on the shore of the gulf of Tituni near Nicæa, and thither came the Roman general, Amynander king of the Athamanes, Dionysodorus envoy of Attalus, Agesimbrotus admiral of the Rhodian fleet, Phæneas prince of the Ætolians, and with them two Achæans, Aristænus and Xenophon. These overland. But Philip came across from Demetrias, now Volo, with one ship of war and five single-banked galleys, and casting anchor as close as might be to the shore, addressed the confederates from the prow of his ship.